Electricity restored to Kakaako businesses
Hawaiian Electric. Co. crews restored power Sunday to the Children’s Discovery Center and other Kakaako businesses. A Hawaiian Electric Co. spokeswoman said crews completed maintenance work on underground electrical cables Sunday morning.
HECO spokeswoman Donna Mun said crews started working at 9 p.m. Saturday and expected the work would be finished by 5 a.m., but it took longer than expected.
Mun said power was restored to auto dealerships in the area and The Bike Shop by about 9:30 a.m.
The Children’s Discovery Center got its electricity back by 10:30 a.m., she said, but the center remained closed for the day.
Pacific Aviation Museum honors daredevil
The Pacific Aviation Pioneers exhibit opened Saturday at the Pacific Aviation Museum Pearl Harbor with the induction of daredevil pilot Tom Gunn.
Thirty members of the Gunn family attended the event.
Gunn, a Chinese-American aviator best known for introducing passenger flight to Hawaii, was born in California in 1890 and grew up in the Bay Area.
In June 1913 he demonstrated his air stunts in Honolulu, flying a 75-horsepower biplane at about 70 mph.
Gunn made more than 800 flights and carried more than 300 passengers in the Pacific, including Hawaii, where he also demonstrated the first flying boat seen in the islands.
Gunn inaugurated air mail service to the neighbor islands and the Philippines before settling in China to fly for leader Sun Yat-sen. He died in a rickshaw accident in 1925.
Fire destroys family’s house
A house in Volcano burned down Saturday afternoon.
No one was injured, and the family of five was not home when the fire broke out on Kokokahi Street in the Fern Forest subdivision at about 4:25 p.m. Saturday.
Hawaii County fire crews arrived to find the front of the small structure partially collapsed, and later the structure completely collapsed. A van underneath a burned-out garage tent was scorched in the blaze, officials said.
Investigators could not determine a cause. The Red Cross is assisting the family.
Brush blaze doused on Maui
Firefighters from Kahului, Kihei and Wailuku extinguished a brush fire Sunday behind Kmart off Hana Highway in Kahului, a Maui County Fire Department spokesman said.
About a half-acre of dry grass and thick shrubbery burned until the fire was under control at 11:13 p.m. Saturday and extinguished just after midnight.
A Maui County Public Works tanker assisted firefighters in containing the blaze.
The cause of the fire is undetermined. No injuries or damage were reported.
Meanwhile, firefighters returned to the scene of a 65-acre fire near Manawainui Gulch in Southeast Maui on Sunday morning. The fire was first reported at 3:07 p.m. Saturday and was considered 50 percent contained by 8 p.m., when firefighters suspended their efforts because of hazardous terrain and darkness.
At about 6:30 a.m. Sunday the fire was about 80 percent contained and had diminished in intensity, a spokesman said. No buildings were threatened.
